History Lessons

As Women's History Month winds down to the last few days, I'm amazed at what an eventful month it's been.  The horrible disaster in Japan and the deaths of icons Elizabeth Taylor and Geraldine Ferraro have struck a chord in our hearts this month. Catastrophe and loss surround us on a daily basis and women the world over take it in stride, as we always have.  The circle of life, emanating from woman - the struggle, the toil, all the joy and pain - ending, only to begin again.

This is what we do, all of us women.  The givers and sustainers of life, most of us deserving of headlines yet moving through our lives unheralded.  My friend, Roberta Martinez, posted a question today on Facebook.  She asked who were the women who've most influenced your life.  I enjoyed reading the various responses posted.  It was a great question and I haven't stopped thinking of which women have influenced my life, whether they were historical figures, family or celebrities.  This is how I answered Roberta's question:

The women who've influenced my life are Harriet Beecher Stowe, Mother Theresa, Marlo Thomas, Eleanor Roosevelt, Elizabeth Taylor. In my own family, the first women I knew who left their indelible impression on the child I was were:
1. My paternal grandmother, Anne L. Babcock Elliott, who taught college-level Latin
2. My maternal great-grandmother, who raised my mom and her 4 siblings after their parents died and still ran a tea-house in Iowa
3. My mother, who overcame rheumatoid arthritis as a child, had considerable health problems as a young woman and had a complete hysterectomy in the 1930s. She married my dad (7 yrs her junior) in 1947 and waited on a list for 10 years to adopt me in 1957, when she was 47 years old. She fought with my father to go to work in the early 1970s and fought cancer for 16 years until she died at 83 in 1994. She worked until she was 80.
4. My birth mother, whoever she was, who had the good sense to know she couldn't take care of me and put me up for adoption to a couple who could.

I like my answer, but as I continue to think about it, there's one woman that I left out.  A woman who I never met, and don't know that much about, but who had a hand in guiding the business that Scott and I are involved in now.  That woman was Scott's paternal grandmother.  The wife of Harold Webster, the founder of Webster's Pharmacy.  You see, Harold died when Scott's dad was only 19.  She had the responsibility of running the store after the death of her husband, and also assumed the task of seeing that her children who worked the business were properly trained on how to actually run it.

That she did a good job of that goes without saying.  The store was very successful for many, many years.  I'd like to give her the recognition here that I can't find any mention of anywhere else.  She has inspired both Scott and I to continue the heritage of Webster's and constantly strive to bring you the best.  We'd like you to join with us in acknowledging a true Altadena pioneer.....thank you, Mrs. Webster!